Gritte, grittle, grättle. What's that I hear coming in the distance? Step aside Santa Claus there's a new Christmas man coming to town and he's called Grittibänz. This recipe is from Eat Little Bird
Prep time: 2 hours
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Makes: 5
Ingredients:
300g strong white bread flour
55g sugar
1/2tsp salt
7g dried yeast
188ml milk
30g butter
20g raisins
1 egg
Raisins, dried apricots, nuts, pearl sugar and sprinkles to decorate
1. Seriously dough?
You know the dough drill by now, add your 300g strong white bread flour, 55g sugar, 1/2tsp salt and 7g dried yeast into a bowl and mix together.
Warm your 188ml briefly and seductively à la Nigella in your microwavé and then add to your bowl of dry ingredients. Once it has made a rough dough, turn out onto a surface and start adding in the 30g of butter one tablespoon at a time, kneading until each tablespoon has been incorporated before adding the next. Best get a workout in now, before Christmas really kicks off.
Keep kneading until the dough is soft and elastic and bounces back when touched, this should take roughly 10 minutes. Add the dough back into the bowl and cover with a teatowel, leave to rise for 1-1.5 hours
2. Now Gritti those Bänz
After the time has elapsed and you've squeezed in a terrible Netflix Christmas film, take your (totally justified) anger about how bad the film was out by punching the air out of the dough and give it a quick knead. Then, knead in all of the raisins so they are nicely distributed throughout.
Shape the dough into a festive log and then cut off 5 balls each weighing 20 grams to make the heads. Weigh the rest of the dough and divide this by five to work out how much is needed for the bodies.
Time for shaping. If you are going for a traditional Grittibänz person shape, roll your body dough into a sausage and cut a long slit on one side and a slightly shorter one on the other. Spread these out to create arms and legs and then add your head piece to the body. Hey presto, your first Grittibänz!
This is your chance to get creative though! Make whatever shapes you want as long as they use the same amount of body and head dough, any shape goes! Decorate your men or Christmas shapes with raisins, pearl sugar, almonds or whatever you fancy. While you're creating, preheat your oven to 220degC
Brush your creations with beaten egg mixed with a dash of milk to ensure they go lovely golden brown and bake for 15-20 minutes.
Dinkibänz und Sinkibänz
Food for Thought
Lizzy says: "I was in love with these chonky Swiss men as soon as Kate shared the recipe with me. They were very easy to make, you just have to account for rising time and plan your day around that. The best part of this recipe was creating your Grittibanz, it was so much fun coming up with new festive characters to create. My only regret was using red food colouring to create what ended up looking like a murder robin. I think if I made these again I would add some saffron or some raisins to the dough to make it slightly more exciting. Nonetheless a solid 10/10"
Kate says: "I recently visited a friend in Zürich, and got so excited at seeing a real life Grittibänz in the supermarket I gave myself hiccups. So it only felt right to bring them in for this year's Gaspmas. Tastewise these were soso, almost like the Saint Lucia Buns we made a couple of years ago but would be great with a coffee in the morning. The real fun though came in the shaping, Lizzy was significantly more creative than I was but I was still very pleased with mine, especially the one in the pearl sugar waistcoat. 8/10 "
9/10 Gasps